Timmi

Downloaded Live CD last night, of Mandriva One.

When it boots, it gives me a HUGE dialog box, that takes up a major portion of the screen's real-estate, and the font is about 10x too large. I can see a truncated word/sentence, a Cancel button (functional), and an OK button, greyed out.

Nowhere am I given an opportunity to confirm the correct screen has been chosen, nor am I presented any options.

Any suggestions?


My hardware is:
I use a standard Toshiba Satellite - A100-VA7
it's a core2duo from a few years back, 2GB RAM, Centrino chipset.
I don't know much about the graphics card... aside that it's a 15.4", 1280-800


I have a pretty "normal" notebook, a Toshiba A100-VA7 Satellite,
core2duo, Centrino chipset. 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 1280x800 15.4" LCD.
It's really nothing exotic.

here is an excerpt from LSPCI:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)

devils casper

Its a Graphics Card problem only.
Have you tried to install Mandriva in Text mode?

__________________

Timmi

Indeed, a Manriva problem not detecting a graphics card.
Thank you for the suggestion.
I am not given any options to select text or graphics.
Is there a way to provoke this?
thanks.

Timmi

Searched a bit, and found out F3 should get me into text mode.
Press F3 about every second before main screen, hit F3 again to select text mode, then F4 for Safe Mode, arrow up to select Run 2010.

Ironically, their "text mode" brought me into a graphical mode installer that works!

Firefox crashed when launching twice and closing one of the sessions.
WiFi forces me to enter a WPA key before continuing, but typing in the box does not enter the key... oddly the box remains blank while you type, (yes, I'm in the box), doesn't register anything, and doesn't connect.
The title bar from the programs you launch position by default beyond the top of the screen... meaning, if you don't have a menu item where you can select File Quit, you're out of luck. It stays on the screen. A good example of this, is the configuration menus.
Some of the configurations items (screen options) are not accessible (and I don't mean the non-applicable ones).

This software is FULL of bugs.

This looks very much like amateurs' attemps at a "marketing coup" by drawing attention to their release in being one of the first "2010" releases... but in reality, consider this as a beta or untested OS, because it's got a ways to go before it's fully functional.

Their "task-oriented" desktop is what attracted me, but their philosophy in delivering a problematic product, and the challenges in accessing their support forums, tells me this is the tip of the iceberg in frustrations. I am moving on to other distros.

Keep the thread alive if it can help others.

devils casper

A lot of other users reported same problems but it worked fine for a few too.
Which distro are you planning to install now? Ubuntu 9.10 will be good, imho.

__________________

Timmi

Thank you, that is a very good recommendation. Personally, what I prefer, is Mint-Ubuntu.
I'm on Linux Mint 7 now. It adds codecs, and configures a bunch of items that are left for the user to configure in Ubuntu - Mint basically finishes the job! I found Mint-Ubuntu so much user-friendlier for first time users, windows migrators, ex geeks who are too old to bother with the techno stuff anymore, and something I can recommend to friends who are not technical at all!

I've tried pretty much all of the most popular ones recently. Not that Mint7 wasn't doing the job - I just couldn't get my webcam to work on it. And, incidentally, Ubuntu 9.10, with the new Debian core that has better webcam support, doesn't seem to take notice of that... and Mint 8 (ubuntu 9.10) isn't out yet. I keep on going back to ubuntu to try it out, because I'm too impatient for Mint to finish the job, and always end up going back to Mint. If it has as broad support of webcams, I wouldn't be looking right now.

What's frustrated me, is now I'm going back to windoze, to keep in touch with family and friends... because webcam, skype... and all of a sudden I'm wondering why I even bother with Linux. Ever since windoze replaces DOS I've been dreaming about open source (even b4 that I was playing with CP/M), but had to keep with windoze to run autocad and inventor. I want Linux to be my MAIN OS, andn revert to windoze only when I want to do CAD (substitutes are not suitable btw).

I liked Puppy Linux a lot, but their wpa_advocant (or whatever it's called) - built as a one-fits-all into puppy, doesn't work with my Intel 3945 wifi card (quite a common one - it's in the Centrino set).

I tried Fedora also... my webcam worked with it in one app (but not cheese), because they seem to have better webcam support than any other distro, and promise to extend that in version 12 - I tried 12 beta LXDE and it doesn't work with my screen yet, and the regular version is slow as molasses in January.

Knoppix was amazing, fast, user-friendly, and configures my WiFi (which Ubuntu doesn't do for me), but no support for my webcam, an it having a single individual developing/supporting it all is of concern to me (as are the reduced people-resources in Mint recently also).

The reason I'm giving you the long answer, is because I appreciate you taking the time to answer my post, I appreciate the help you give others, and thought you might appreciate getting a little bit of insight from the point of view of a user that doesn't want to fuss with scrips and kernel recompilations (which represents the feeling of 95% of potential users out there).

I've tried (hope I don't leave too many out):
Debian 5, Debian 6 (pre-release), Fedora, Knoppix, Mandriva, Mepis, Mint-ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Puppy (and a few other small ones), Toorox (built on Knoppix), Ubuntu & Kubuntu, ZenWalk...
I can check my recycling bin for more... the least promising CDs are in there! LOL